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Uncanny X-Men (2018)

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The fifth volume of Uncanny X-Men, launched in 2018 as part of the Fresh Start initiative. Initially written by Ed Brisson, Matthew Rosenberg and Kelly Thompson with the "X-Men Disassembled" storyline, Rosenberg later took over as sole writer starting with issue #11.

"X-Men Disassembled" serves as a relaunch for most of the X-Men line, with the cancellation of X-Men: Gold, X-Men: Blue and X-Men: Red. Said arc leads into the Age of X-ManBat Family crossover. The series also features the official returns of both Cyclops and Wolverine to the X-Men after lengthy absences; together the two will form a new X-Men team.

The fifth volume provides examples of the following tropes:

Affably Evil: Nate, at worst. He's genuinely friendly, polite, and regretful that he must take down the X-Men, and is very happy to explain himself after the young X-Men outright ask him why he's doing what he is. In Issue 8, however, he loses his temper. Considering that Nate was trapped in the Age of Apocalypse and/or inside Legion's head, for a period of relative months, which he not unreasonably considers to be an attempt to kill him (though he doesn't know that it was all Legion's idea), you can see why. And even after that, he has a long and fairly pleasant chat with Jean inside his head, and is genuinely regretful at what he feels he must do.

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A God Am I: After he takes over Legion's body Nathan declares himself a god - and makes the point that he effectively is one beforehand and afterwards. Considering his raw power, it's hard to argue with him.

Any Last Words?: Subverted, as in this scenario both characters are antiheros, rather than a villain mocking the hero. Hope wants her last words to be, in French: "The revolution, like Saturn, devours its own children." (The Roman god, not the planet.)

Artistic License  Physics: Averted for once. Normally we hear that Cyke's eyebeams don't have any effect on him besides coloring his vision (as Wolverine pointed out), but when his skull is fractured using his eyebeams could shatter it.

Sugar Man, who hasn't been seen since just prior to Secret Wars (2015) (where, ironically, he was also Back for the Dead, with Magneto murdering him), is killed off in the same scene he appears.

A twofer in issue 11: Blindfold returns to deliver a warning to Cyclops and be Driven to Suicide, while Loa's appearance amounts to a corpse.

Issue 12 has Strong Guy pull a Heroic Sacrifice to save the other captured X-Men.

In issue 16 Joseph shows up only to get beheaded.

Badass Boast: X-Man and Legion swap them when going head to head. Only in the former case does it turn out to be justified.

Nate: I am the master of minds! You think you can hold me?!

Legion: I do. But I think you'll find that my mind is a little more complicated than what you're used to, big man. Do you really think you're the first super-powered child to throw a tantrum in here? I have ways of dealing with you. We all do... we are Legion.

Nate: I know what you are, David. But I'm afraid you have no idea what I am.

Legion: Wait! Don't -

Nate: Your father failed you. To soothe your broken mind he told you that there is a real you buried in there. He told you that the mind is the self. What you are. I know the mind is but a tool. And tools can be taken away. This is my mind now.

Big Damn Heroes: At the end of his rope and desperate to keep the dream alive, Cyclops makes a public statement calling any remaining X-Men to meet him at the ruins of the Xavier Institute left behind from X-Mans attack. The only ones to answer his call are the Reavers, Purifiers and Sapien League all coordinated in an ambush. Three words and one sound effect lets Scott know there is still some hope for the X-Men:

The Madrox dupes, as it turns out, the reason they're crazy and are suddenly demonstrating superpowers is because Legion kidnapped Jamie Madrox and put each of his personalities inside a Jamie dupe, manifestating their powers in the dupes.

There's also the Horsemen of Salvation, consisting of Angel, Magneto, Blob and Omega Red. They have been brainwashed by X-Man to serve his purposes.

Breather Episode: Winter's End, which admittedly takes place before the first issue.

Cyclops and Wolverine, who've been missing from the X-books, the former since his death and return and the latter since his resurrection, both return to the X-Men while they're off in the Age of X-Man event.

The Chew Toy: Jamie is being put through a lot in this series with a lot of his dupes being used for torturous experiments by Dark Beast before dying.

Kid Cable tells Logan to take care of Cyclops because he himself can't — this is because he went off to track down weapons in X-Force (2018).

Logan himself mentions that his memories aren't all there, which is because of the events of Return Of Wolverine. Although the ending of that series later revealed that, no, most of his memories are in fact still there, so it might be a snarl depending on what he was referring to.

A subplot introduced early on focuses on the New X-Men class, who are growing increasingly bitter at how they're treated by the adults because they're so young. Among them are Armor, Pixie, Anole, and Rockslide, all of whom are very experienced veterans. This is exacerbated by X-23 being considered one of the "adult" X-Men, despite the fact she is roughly the same age and was part of the same generation.

On top of that, issue 8 ends with Armor explaining the kids' moral take-away from the mission: they never understood the X-Men and true battle, and now that they're MIA, they finally understand how tough the real X-Men have it. This is practically a Broken Aesop, because the New X-Men had an entire book dedicated to them dealing with problems even the adults couldn't handle, being let down by the X-Men, experienced heavy losses and death, and were forced to fight as soldiers just to stay alive. (Armor even highlights Magik in Limbo as an example of how the X-Men treat their fallen, despite the fact that Pixie and Rockslide actually went to Limbo, met her and helped her escape.) So despite what the story is trying to say, the kids do know what they're talking about.

Anole is now sporting two regular looking, albeit green skinned, arms, his spiky oversized monster arm apparently being gone, not to mention his total makeover after going to a Bad Future in Extraordinary X-Men. No explanation has been given for this and while some books around the same time similarly lacked this detail, Uncanny makes it more noticeable since he's not a background character here and so it stands out more that he's lost one of his main powers.

In Issue #4 Nate dismisses Apocalypse's opinion while talking to Kitty, saying he's only kept as a reminder of a hell he doesn't want. The very next issue he seeks and follows Apocalypse's suggestion, claiming all his hostages are present to serve as a balanced council advising him how to best change the world.

Danielle Moonstar shows up in issue #12. Problem is she also shows up in the Age of X-man books.

Continuity Porn: The first annual, which bounces between X-Men stories for the majority of its pages.

Curbstomp Battle: Nate swats Jubilee out the way, and the X-Men, including Jean Grey, Psylocke, Storm, and Iceman, among other heavy hitters, all go for him at once. By the time Jubilee gets back with the Young X-Men, a minute or so later, they're all tied up and Nate hasn't even broken a sweat.

In issue 8, it turns out that Legion trapped Nate and the Young X-Men in his mind. Considering just who and what Nate is, this proved to be a spectacularly unfortunate decision once Nate figured out what was going on.

Downer Ending: In the end, after realising that the X-Men would always stand in his way, Nate Seemingly kills the entire extended X-Men roster, apparently dying in the process. Additionally, Anole turns over the mutant vaccine, and the government institutes a mandatory vaccination to prevent future mutant manifestations. For added Downer points,Anything positive that Nate did is undone, the X-Men's deaths are celebrated by humanity at large, and new laws are put in place that will lead to humanity effectively vaccinating mutants into extinction. However, Age of X-Man implies that he shuffled them into a parallel reality instead. Or they could just be in his head, which would partially explain Danielle Moonstar's being in both series.

Do Not Go Gentle: The storyline after Disassembled has Cyclops and Wolverine reuniting and forming a new team of X-Men with the other X-Men supposedly dead and extinction heading around the corner again with the express intention on effectively completing a "bucket list" of sorts.

Dude, Where's My Respect?: Most of the point of the younger X-Men's presence is to complain about not being respected by the older X-Men.

Evilutionary Biologist: Dark Beast returns in the post-Disassembled arc. Here his new maxim is that cybernetic enhancement is the true path of evolution and has both extensively modified himself and is experimenting on the Transmode virus infected New Mutants.

Issue #11: teen Cable shoots Wolverine in the eye. True to form, he just picks what's left of it out of the socket.

Issue #15: Hope shoots Cyclops in the face, taking out one eye.

Good Counterpart: This title introduces the opposite number to the Horsemen of Apocalypse with the Horsemen of Salvation; Peace, Wellness, Bounty and Life. Subverted in that they're just as fanatical as their counterparts and their actions can be just as threatening to the masses.

Grand Theft Me: After realizing the Age of Apocalypse world he's trapped in is just Legion's mind, Nathan hijacks his body.

HeelFace Brainwashing: Like their apocalyptic counterparts, the Horsemen of Salvation are largely brainwashed mutant supervillains. They're not remotely pleased once they're released.

The anti-mutant activist in the first issue, who the characters outright say is the generic picture of almost every anti-mutant politician they've ever met.

Armor and Anole mention that they feel neglected, like they were someone's pet project before that person moved on. This is obviously a commentary on how young mutant characters are treated after their creation.

Annual #1 has Kid Cable admit that he resurrected Cyclops because dying on his knees thanks to the Terrigen Mists should not be how the great leader of the X-Men should die. Later, Cyclops admits that he became the very thing he fought thanks to the events of Avengers vs. X-Men and later. Both his death and his characterization have been criticized over the years by different people.

Issue #11 opens with Cyclops lamenting how every X-Men story is the same; a common criticism of the franchise, especially in recent years.

Loads and Loads of Characters: The cast is pretty big, even for X-Men standards. The main characters just in the first issue are: Jean Grey, Iceman, Jubilee, Psylocke, Angel, Bishop, Anole, Armor, Jamie Madrox, Kitty Pryde, Storm, X-23 and Cannonball.

Mythology Gag: "X-Men Disassembled" seems to be a reference to "Avengers Disassembled", the first arc of Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers run. Notably, the structure is similar, as both stories lead into an altered universe story.

Not So Omniscient After All: After talking to Blindfold, Cyclops gets convinced that the X-men are all dead; but for her it might not have been a prophecy, so much as repeating what Gabriel told her earlier.

Only Sane Man: Pixie among her classmates ends up coming off as this; she's the first and only one who thinks picking fights with the teachers is a bad idea, and repeatedly clashes with Armor over her increasingly antagonistic behaviour and less-than-wise decisions.

Out-Gambitted: Legion thought that he could contain Nate in his mind, that it was the only prison that could hold him. This worked for a grand total of five minutes of real time (though it was months inside), and as soon as Nate figured out what was going on, he flattened Legion and body-jacked.

Physical God: Nate, who always verged on this to begin with at full power, is definitely this thanks to getting his powers back in boosted form thanks to the Life Seed, taking down entire teams of X-Men with minimal effort, telepathically overpowering Legion in seconds, and requiring a distraction from Jean, and the full power of Psylocke, the Stepford Sisters, Sage, and No-Girl and a whopping great lightning bolt from Storm to separate him from Legion, who he'd body-jacked... and even then he's still holding off the full force of the X-Men, the former Horsemen of Salvation (including Magneto), while carrying on a conversation with Jean.

Poor Communication Kills: Legion, who became aware of what X-Man is doing and tries to warn everyone to stop it; he does so by sending a vague image of the future to Jean telepathically that doesn't explain any context, then kidnaps and tortures Jamie Madrox in order to use his dupes as brainwashed cannon fodder to prevent the events he's seen coming, and rather than explain any of this when the X-Men come to investigate, he attacks them. Bizarrely, Armor considers this the X-Men's fault for not listening to Legion despite his actions directly making everyone react the way they did.

Pre-emptive Declaration: Ruth tells Cyclops to leave money for an intact window seconds before he gets assaulted by a guy and reflexively throws him through the window.

Psycho Rangers: The Mutant Liberation Front has hijacked the X-Men name during the time between the team's supposed deaths and Cyclops' rebuilding. It sorta helps that they have Hope Summers and Banshee in their group.

Pun: Cyclops can't help but grin and ask Wolverine how long he was waiting to use the "seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses" joke.

In Winter's End, possibly aimed at the readers:

Ice Master: [kissing Daken] Does this ship work for you?

Doubles as a shout-out when Johnny wrote Bobby a birthday song. He calls it A Song of Ice and Fire.

Reality Warper: Nate Grey, and Legion, both to an unknown extent - in the former case, it's unclear how much he's capable of, and in the latter, it depends on his state of mind.

Jamie Madrox's or rather, Legion's intent, although he's in too much of a panic to properly do so and just ends up causing problems for the X-Men.

X-Man's overriding motivation is more or less the same - he's dying, traumatised, and desperate to prevent the 616 universe from ending up like his home.

The subplot in Winter's End, where a centuries-old Iceman returns to the present to convince present-day Iceman not to make his mistakes, such as trusting Daken.

Snap Back: Cyclops and Wolverine are wearing their older costumes, Cyclops in his 90's-era X-uniform and Wolverine in his 80's-era gold and brown costume. This extends to everyone else in Cyclops' team as Havok is wearing his late-90s X-Factor outfit and the New Mutants are left wearing their old blue and golds.

Storming the Castle: In issue 12, Cyclops and Wolverine end up invading a base holding the New Mutants (the old 80s version)

Vagueness Is Coming: Jamie Madrox warns of... something coming, which seems to be tied to the anomalies in the timeline that Bishop is combating and whatever is hunting the Age of Apocalypse refugees. It is revealed that the vagueness is in fact Nate Grey.

What the Hell, Hero?: Cyclops gives one to Captain America for promising to do more for the mutant community and letting the X-Men die and then appearing to defend a group of bigots at a campaign rally espousing anti-mutant sentiments (Rogers promises hes just keeping things from breaking out into a riot). YMMV on whether hes right or not, considering their past history regarding mutant rights. Later in his part of the issue Logan gives a subtler one to Black Widow and Bucky, asking why the Avengers would show up to protect a hate rally. Widow gives him the same answer as Cap.

Apocalypse of all people is captured off-screen to show how badass the unseen villain is. Downplayed because the person who captured him is revealed to be Nate Grey, who has eclipsed Apocalypse at the height of his power, having been engineered specifically to kill his world's Apocalypse.

Legion gets dramatically curbstomped by Nate in telepathic combat, after the latter figures out that he's trapped in Legion's mind.

Year Inside, Hour Outside: Legion ends up trapping Nate and the younger X-men in a simulated version of the age of Apocalypse inside his mind. They spend nearly a year there, and Armor is later shocked to discover that in the real world, only 5 minutes have passed.

You Know I'm Black, Right?: Illyana is duly impressed by Mister Sinister's ability to turn an entire fire brigade into copies of himself standing right next to Jamie, whose power set is exactly that. When he points this out she says it's cooler when Sinister does it.

You See, I'm Dying: When directly asked why he's upheaving up the world, X-Man admits it's because he's dying and he wants to save the world with his great power before he goes.

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